Woman arrested for leaving daughter, 4, home alone

Police found the girl unharmed after receiving a call from the landlord of a subdivided apartment

A 40-year-old woman of Ugandan origin was arrested for alleged child abuse as she was accused of leaving her four-year-old daughter home along in a subdivided apartment in Mong Kok, Kowloon, early on Friday.

At 2am, police received a call from a landlord that a four-year-old girl had been left alone in an apartment in Lai Tong Building on Tong Mi Road in Mong Kok, Apple Daily reported.

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Police arrived and found the girl, who was unharmed. They later arrested the mother, an asylum seeker, for suspected child abuse.

The woman’s boyfriend and the girl’s father is also an asylum seeker and has been in Hong Kong for 12 years. He told the police that his girlfriend was arrested after the couple went to a supermarket late on Thursday.

He said he did not want his daughter to be sent to a children’s home as he wanted the three of them to stay together like a family.

He is currently living independently in an apartment on Fuk Wah Street in Sham Shui Po.

The landlord said the mother and daughter had moved into his subdivided apartment six months ago after a non-governmental organization offered to pay the rent for them. However, he said the woman failed to fulfill the NGO’s standard paperwork requirements, and it had not paid him the rent or utility expenses for six months.